I Know You From Somewhere
by chemiglee
Summary: Blaine's met the New Directions kids before he met Kurt. He just doesn't always remember what happened. From a prompt by istytehcrawk on Tumblr. In progress as of 5/18/2013. I do not own Glee or any of its characters. Chapter 4 has trigger warnings for violence and homophobic slurs. I do not condone homophobia or violence. All characters are above the age of consent.
1. Prologue

Blaine, of course, remembers meeting Kurt. How could he not? When galaxies collide, the fallout is colossal.

What he doesn't always remember is that he's met all of Kurt's New Directions friends before.

Some of those meetings happen in different worlds, so it's all fuzzy in Blaine's head and the details aren't clear, nor do they necessarily make sense.

Some of the kids remember Blaine and some of them don't. The feelings they bring up are not always positive, and the kids don't always act as they ought to. Some of these stories have happy endings, and those are moments to be treasured, counted out, like his mother's creamy-white pearls; the ones she wears with the black velvet dress, with the diamond studs that glitter like stars.

Blaine remembers some of them fondly. And there are a few memories that cause him pain. He learns, eventually, to let the drama all go. Even the painful encounters have burrowed themselves deeply into his neurons, too, so whatever he does learn from them - what he does remember - he keeps forever.

Blaine doesn't always act as he ought to have, either. He's definitely not proud of those times.

And there are some meetings that Blaine doesn't remember at all, or that he knows even happened, somewhere out there. But that doesn't mean that they aren't important, either.


	2. Blaine and Mike

Blaine's seven years old and already he knows that he will have a career in music. His parents are very proud of him. Blaine's asked to provide entertainment at family parties. It makes the Andersons look good. Blaine likes to please his parents, but more importantly, the music soothes him. He plays the violin like the second coming of Salieri and his piano teacher is already recommending another, more prestigious one - "He needs a better teacher and Mr. Lee is the best." Cooper always leans against the wall and narrows his eyes after another one of Blaine's impromptu concerts, but he's still a good brother, at least on the outside. He indulgently ruffled Blaine's head at age four after their first run at a Duran Duran number and tells him, "Squirt, you're pretty good. Well, not as good or as handsome as me, but you're pretty good."

His mother watches her two boys dance and sing, three years later, and realizes that Blaine needs dance lessons, too. Because, while Blaine is terrified of telling his parents he won't be a lawyer or a doctor or a captain of industry, he doesn't know that his mother already recognizes his gift.

So, on one Saturday afternoon, she doesn't tell his father where she's taking Cooper and Blaine. Cooper is dropped off at a friend's house to play video games. Cooper doesn't complain. Blaine cramps his style, the little adorable mofo. After Cooper runs into Nick's house, Blaine's mother opens the back door and puts Blaine up to ride shotgun.

"Where are we going, Mom?" as he buckles himself carefully in.

She smiles at him fondly. "Somewhere that I think you really want to go. Just... don't tell your father we were here."

It's a silent ride to the dance studio, but once they're there, it's packed with parents and little kids. It's almost eleven o'clock in the morning, almost lunchtime, so it's loud. Some of the kids are hungry and they're not afraid to let everyone know. Blaine grabs his mother's hand tight, eyes wide as saucers.

The introduction to jazz dance recital looks like it's a mixed class. The teacher, a middle-aged woman in a black leotard, calls for quiet, and they begin. It's sort of bad, in that the whole routine is not very polished. Eagle-eyed parents sit on the sidelines, babies in laps, or video cameras in hand, or both.

Blaine and his mother are standing next to another couple. She pushes Blaine up to the front so he can see. The couple look related to the adorable little Chinese girl in the middle of the pack. Her mother is smiling and nodding and bobbing a little. Her father's smiling too, and taking pictures.

Blaine wishes his father was like that.

Off to the left of the dance floor is a Chinese boy in a cute gray fedora, a plaid shirt - untucked - and black jeans. He's Blaine's age, maybe a little older. They must be all a family, but Blaine doesn't know why the boy is separated from his parents.

The boy stands out. He's dancing jazz, too. It's the exact same choreography as the kids are doing on the dance floor. But it's precise, clean, graceful. The boy makes it look so easy and he puts them all to shame. He moves like Michael Jackson. Blaine looks around and realizes that half the video cameras in the room aren't always trained on the dancers out on the floor. They're cutting back and forth between the floor and the boy dancing his heart out on the sidelines. He dances like Blaine sings. He's seeing a little slice of the boy's soul.

The girl on the floor looks at her brother and gets a peeved look on her pretty face, but she doesn't stop.

Later, over coffee (or juice), the boy approaches Blaine.

Blaine's let go of his mother's hand and she's actually talking to the dance teacher, so she's only got her mind half on where Blaine is at the moment. Over on the other side of the room, the boy's family are all talking to other parents and the little girl is with them, grinning broadly and curtseying like a little doll. It reminds Blaine of The Nutcracker, except it's not the boy's sister he imagines dancing that ballet.

"Hey!" says the boy. "I saw you watching the recital. Did you have fun? There's not a lot of boys our age here."

Blaine suddenly remembers his manners. "Oh! Yeah... yeah. You're really good. You remind me of dancers on music videos." He wipes his little hand on his khakis and offers it to the boy in a handshake. His dad's voice sounds in his head: Always give everyone a good first impression, Blaine, because you don't know when you might need it later. "I'm Blaine."

The boy heartily returns the handshake. "I'm Mike. I'm here with my sister and her parents. It's her recital."

Blaine says, "You're actually really, really good. Do you take lessons here? I think I might..." His voice trails off. He doesn't know if this is going to work out and he'd hate to make a friend here and then not come back.

Mike shakes his head vigorously. "No. It's my sister they think should be dancing, and even then she probably won't actually be a grownup dancer. I'm supposed to be a doctor and she's supposed to be a pharmacist. Then we're supposed to set up a practice together. Or something." He shrugs. There's obvious wistfulness in his expression, and he scuffs his toes on the floor, which he's suddenly studying very intently.

Blaine wonders at that, because he just can't imagine this talented boy, who moves like a dream, being a doctor.

"I know," Blaine says sympathetically. "I think my parents want me to be a lawyer. But I can't tell them that I want to sing for people on a stage. Or maybe in a studio or on an album." He can't help but to sound excited here, because he knows that this is what he wants.

Mike plasters a friendly grin on his very nice face and looks up to meet Blaine. "Parents can be hard to talk to. I'll figure it out someday. But my sister will keep taking more lessons here until it's time to do the pharmacist stuff. But why are you here if you're going to be a lawyer?"

Blaine sighs. "Maybe my mom thinks it'd be okay if I took a few dance lessons? I think that's what it is."

"It's a little pricey here, but it's a nice place. They don't mind that I dance in the audience." Mike turns his body to the right and tilts his hat, holding the rim of it in long, elegant fingers, striking a pose.

"Blaine! Let's go, honey. I've got to go pick up your brother." His mom cuts through the sea of parents like a shark. Blaine's mom is so nice, but what she says, she means.

Mike turns back and tips his hat to Blaine's mom. She laughs at him. "I saw you. You were so good, honey."

"Thank you, ma'am. Uh... maybe I'll see you around?" Mike asks hopefully.

"Maybe," Blaine says. It would be nice to have a friend already here.

They shake on it again. "Here," Mike says suddenly, and pops the fedora off his head. "It's for you. So that you'll have to come back and give it back to me." He waves as they leave.

"That's a nice boy, Blaine," his mother says, as they walk out to the parking lot. "You might take some lessons here... would you like to?"

He nods.

But Blaine and his mother don't come back to that same dance studio. She finds a slightly cheaper place. That's the place where his dancing talents start to grow. But he keeps the fedora until he's thirteen, posing with it in front of the hallway mirror, until Blaine's father throws it out. That's the same day Blaine came out to his parents, so it hurts hurts hurts hurts to think about.

But he does remember Mike and Mike remembers him. So, their second meeting in a choir room at McKinley High School is a pleasant one. But you all knew about that.


	3. Blaine and Brittany

_4/09/13 neiltyson: dallasgambit: Since time stops at the speed of light, if something can live at that speed, would it live forever? / Yes._

"Nana, where are the stars exactly?"

Blaine's grandmother is a slight woman with gentle honey-brown eyes and dark hair lightly coiled into a bun. Tendrils escape from its coils and stray hairs stick up from around her head, because she doesn't have time to keep it gelled down or pinned down. There are more pressing matters to attend to. Normally, it's her research. She's a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Lima University, and she spends hours at the observatory, studying stellar evolution - how stars burst into life, how they burn, how they die. In the freshman astronomy classes she still teaches, it just seems that as the years whirl by, less and less of her bored students are actually interested in stopping to look up, up, up. They're too wrapped up in their own smallish lives. Alice Anderson doesn't blame them. Life just seems to get more difficult the more busy we get.

On a Friday night, when Blaine is nine years old, she's just Nana, not the astronomer. Nana sees a chance - a small chance - that she might be able to capture a star of her own. She looks down at Blaine and puts her thin arm about her grandson's shoulders. She doesn't look down at Blaine; not when there's so much to look at. Her face is upturned to meet the sky. His face is a perfect mirror of hers. Their faces are wide open and dazzled. Blaine's left hand reaches up and tries to grab at one. When he lets go, he's got a bunch of stars sitting on his little palm.

Blaine and Cooper are sleeping over at Nana's house this weekend, to give his frazzled, work-weary parents a weekend free. They've travelled out into the outskirts of Lima, where there's much less light pollution, and set up camp in a field to stargaze before they head back, heads drooping. It's Cooper's turn to look through her telescope. He's hunched over a bit and he's not said a word since he first got a hold of it. It's funny how the stars silence everyone just by being what they are. But he doesn't ask any questions about the twinkling, distant lights beyond the planet; he's just happy watching them, imagining whatever he's imagining. He never does say what's on his mind during these excursions. Blaine's the one with all the questions and Nana is happy to oblige him.

"They're many, many light-years away and they're out in space. And you know what a light-year is, so you know that when you're actually seeing a star, you're seeing that star as it was that many light-years away." She rubs his shoulder encouragingly, trying to get him to think.

Blaine furrows his dark brows. Astronomy can be pretty confusing, especially if there's _science_ attached to it. "So if a star's a million light-years away, it's a million years old?"

Cooper snaps - because he doesn't like all the talking, for once - "No, stupid. You're seeing it as it was a million years ago."

Blaine flinches. Nana smacks Cooper once across the back of the head. "Ow!"

Attention diverted, Blaine manages to get back on track. "But wait, so the speed of light is how fast it goes. Is that how fast anything can go?" Now that's neat. Cars could go that fast. Trains could go that fast. Blaine can't imagine his model train set chugging along that fast, but that must be possible; Nana said so and she's always right. Superman could go that fast, if he wanted to, and of course Superman wants to. There's too many people to go save.

"Yes," Nana says. "Except time. Time stops at the speed of light. The faster you go, the slower time goes, so if you're traveling at the speed of light - "

He gets it, sort of. "You won't die."

Nana smiles and moves her hand from his shoulder to the top of his head. She ignores the gel. It isn't important. "Not that you won't die, just that you'll live forever, since time will stop."

Cooper straightens up from his position on the telescope. "Here, squirt, your turn. I'm cramped up." But Blaine doesn't rush, for once, to see all the little specks of glittering time dust. He's too caught up in the moment, and the moment freezes. like all the frozen stars in Nana's telescope.

Alice Anderson gives planetarium tours once a day, on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Blaine tags along with her on the tour on a Saturday. It's there that he catches the eye of a little blonde girl in a ponytail and a cute blue jumper embroidered with rainbows and a mewling sound coming from her front pocket.

A kaleidoscope is a little star-world all its own, and his has blue and red pieces that swirl around in its cardboard case. His has his name written primly in black Sharpie. He drops it, somewhere between the lurid "Is There Life In The Universe?" exhibit and a giant glass case of an astronomer's white puffy suit.

She taps him imperiously on the shoulder. "Here. You dropped this."

"Oh. Oh! Thank you." He holds his hand out, waiting politely. But the girl doesn't give it back, nor does she even shake his hand or say a proper hello. She shakes it and puts it up to her eye, and that's when she decides it's the right moment to say, "I'm Brittany. I'm a time-traveller, too."

"Oh. I'm Blaine. Where's your mom and dad?" He retracts his hand and stuffs both hands in his pockets. He's lost Nana and the rest of the tour group somewhere. Suddenly, the friendly planetarium seemed to be a really scary place. Everyone was going to get upset and wonder where he was. He darted a glance back and forth, but there's just adults around, none of whom look related to this strange little girl.

She shrugs and starts picking at the gold diamond-patterned paper on the kaleidoscope case. "I don't know. Not that it matters. I'm made of stardust. When it comes time to go back home, I'll just fly back to space in my time machine."

"Wha - hey! That was mine. Give that back!"

Blaine's confused, but his anger is starting to win out, and his voice raises. He makes a lunge for her, but she giggles and hops just out of reach, dancing a little on her heels like a puppet. She pops the unraveling tube into her pocket, and whirls, ponytail whipping her neck, and takes off through the crowds.

Brittany zigzags neatly in and between the people like she's done this many times. Blaine can hear her laugh as she runs. He chases after her, slipping between strangers and tall garbage cans and the security guard who usually sneaks Blaine candy at the entrance. Once time he actually pushes someone away when Brittany slips past by him - a boy - and pale icy blue eyes meet frantic hazel ones for just a split second; but now's not the time to apologize, even though he'd been rude _again_. He's got to get Nana's kaleidoscope back. He's huffing and puffing, because she's fast, and has longer legs, and her white tennis shoes are a blur. His sweater vest gets hot and tight, and his nice loafers aren't really meant for playing tag. The combination of emotions he's got held tight in his chest - fear at being lost, fear at losing Nana's gift - doesn't help sharpen his vision.

Just outside what they all call the domed "star room" is a little carpeted alcove, and it's there that he catches up to her. She's crouched against the wall, but Blaine can just make out the tip of her nose.

Blaine crosses his arms. "I see you. Give me my kaleidoscope back."

Brittany pulls herself up elegantly and steps out to meet him, looking him straight in the eyes and square on. "It won't matter." She pulls it out of her pocket, or what's left of it. She's not teasing or happy. She sounds sad. While she was hiding, she'd picked the cardboard completely apart and the foil is all torn to pieces. She holds out her hand, finally, and steps closer to him. She leans over and gently - gently - puts the blue and red pieces in his pocket instead.

"I'm sorry for taking your kaleidoscope, but Lord Tubbington needed it so he could try to see the Thetans. I can always get one for him though, because I think you'll need these back more than he will."

She turns tail and walks away. She doesn't see him until six years later, and she doesn't recognize him when they meet again.

Blaine carries the blue and red pieces in his pockets for a long time until the linings get worn, except for the funeral, two weeks later, when he put them in his jacket pocket instead. He put his hands over that pocket and thought about time standing still. When the Anderson family finally go over to Nana's shabby house to clean up and donate her things to charity, Blaine, of course, doesn't get much say in what happens. He cries when they talk, regretfully and sadly, about selling Nana's telescopes; there's not enough room in their home for fifty of the things. Blaine's parents hold he and Cooper close while they cry together. All he ever has of her that's tangible is the remains of the kaleidoscope; all the memories of night sky talk stay with him, and how Nana will now live forever because her soul is travelling at the speed of light.

He doesn't ever know that Brittany's parents buy one of Nana's telescopes for their daughter at the estate sale.

He doesn't ever know that Lord Tubbington finds the Thetans after all.

He doesn't remember the little blonde girl that gave him the only reminder of Nana he will ever have. So it's with an open heart that they both meet again, which is just as well.


	4. Blaine and Puck (tw: violence)

**A/N: **Trigger warning for descriptions of violence, including the attempted use of a weapon. The violence is not graphic and there is no permanent damage. Do not read this chapter if you believe that you will in any way be triggered. If you have been the victim of violence, please, please seek help. There are resources out there that can help you.

I

When they meet for the first time at the House-Party Train-Wreck Extravaganza, Blaine is all sweet, wide-eyed courtesy, because Puck is one of Kurt's Glee club friends. Their paths don't cross much at that party, however. For one thing, they're both drunk off their asses. For another, they both have their own matters to attend to. Puck had his hands full with that orange fireball of a Lauren Zizes, and Blaine had his hands full with that blazing spitfire of a Rachel Berry. Later, as Blaine and Kurt burn hot, then cold, Blaine and Puck's friendship starts out tenuously, at best.

But right after they get together, Blaine wants to love all of Kurt's friends, including Puck. Blaine glosses over the army-green khaki jacket and muscle shirts and trimmed mohawk and cockiness and, you know what? It's all good. For all his attitude and disrespect to adults, Puck is, refreshingly, not a homophobe - or at least, he gets there eventually. He wasn't always this way. Puck is he of the pee-balloons, the icy red slushies, the port-a-potty rumbles. That was a dark, dank, hole-making void in Kurt's life before he came alive at the bottom of an iron-wrought staircase at Dalton.

Kurt understands loneliness. This is why he thinks he understands Puck, and that is what he tells Blaine, legs entwined, fingers swirling circles idly on Blaine's heart-full chest. Blaine's so in love it hurts, so he only vaguely picks it up later; Puck probably has good reason to be the way he is. But because his head floats in the clouds that year, Blaine doesn't think much more of Puck, other than he's a good singer, and he's sort of a buddy; he's sort of cool. So Blaine doesn't remember.

Puck never tells anyone, not even Finn or Mike or Sam, that he's met Blaine. He doesn't tell Blaine that he remembers him. What happened would make Kurt upset, and Kurt deserves a nice guy. _Much_ more importantly, Blaine is the guy that'll finally get Kurt some hot, sweaty, explicit man-on-man action. (The thought of Blaine and Kurt, naked, together, teases him in his oh-so-excitable nether regions - a fantasy which only his socks and his lube know about.) So, despite what happened, Puck doesn't hold any grudges. Kurt understands loneliness, but Puck understands futility. Puck understands rage.

II

A year before, Blaine is a simmering acid vat waiting to corrode something, anything. He wants the world to know just how pissed off he is, and a mousy therapist in a posh bookcase-lined office isn't enough of a megaphone to tell Thurston High School to burn itself to the ground. He's going to enjoy dancing in the flames when that happens. Maybe he'll set it himself. Maybe he'll set fire to himself. But on the outside, he's deadened, because it's too dangerous to show what kind of fury is locked inside his ribcage and banging to get out.

She adjusts her glasses and buttons down the front of her boring brown cardigan. She says over and over, carefully, patiently, "Tell me how you feel."

Blaine gestures with his cast. He feels nothing, he says. He glowers, his hazel eyes burning fiercely in a battered face. Because you have to say something, he manages to keep her hanging for weeks, doling out scraps just so that the stupid therapist can tell herself she's helping this poor, lonely boy.

He learns to put a smooth gloss over his face, blank and bland, and a disposable smile to go with it. Inside, the acid slowly eats away, bubbles of sarcasm bursting at the surface of everything he says.

The therapist shakes her head. He means to wound whomever he talks to. After circling him and finding no opening, she calls his parents and delivers an ultimatum.

"We've bought you a boxing gym membership," his mother says, counting off the pearl beads on her necklace. Her sweet face is concerned and pure. It plucks at Blaine's heart strings. He knows, tucked away underneath his smothering layers of bound-up, cracking emotion, that his parents love him.

His father, still dressed in his smart travelling business suit, puts a hand on Blaine's bent shoulders. "I think it'll do you good. Just go a couple of times. Work it out." He looks like Cooper, but more distinguished and more arrogant at the same time. And even though his dad could be closer to him, Blaine knows that he, too, is doing his best to deal. Just like his mom.

Blaine _knows_, but understanding is still very far away and anger is right here. The world can go to fucking hell. But Blaine also doesn't have anything else to do other than makeup work, which is appallingly easy, so he nods, shortly.

"If this doesn't work, we'll have to find you another therapist. Maybe even a treatment center," his dad worries, a thread of frustration weaving through his brow.

Blaine snaps out of his sullen mood. "Don't worry, it'll work," he snarks, and his parents flinch. They learned, right after the _incident_, not to ask how he's been doing lately. Blaine also knows the last thing he needs to do is to talk about feelings and shit. Talking got him into this mess, and it certainly won't get him out.

III

The boxing gym smells like feet. His trainer is gentle on him the first time. He shows him the proper way to stand, elbows in, fists up to protect the face, one foot back, one foot in front. It _is_ like dance, except that you hit people. He mentally puts the face of one of the boys on the bag, one jab, one right cross, one left hook, and he switches it up. The bag has a little give to it, but it's stiffened underneath - like his mattress, or muscle under skin - and the fraying thread and stuffing poking out of the seams is like blood seeping out, or pain. It feels good on his gloved hands, but in the end, there's little satisfaction in boxing a helpless bag.

It does help for a little while, and he keeps on coming back. He's still fucking pissed, but at least he can go longer between training sessions without wanting to punch real people in the face. Other than that? He's anesthetized.

"Hey, kid. Kid, c'mere."

Blaine's never seen him before, but he's got this devil-may-care, live-for-today attitude now and so he doesn't care about what kind of creepy strangers approach him in a boxing gym. He's older, dressed in dirty, sweaty gray sweats, and a nose that hasn't quite healed in place.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Fuckin' relax, kid. Nah, you'll do. Ten o'clock, Saturday night. Bring a ringer, maybe" - he glances pointedly at Blaine's small form - "or get someone to drive you home." He passes over a card with cartoony skulls and gloves printed on it: _Fight Club_. It's near the boxing gym. He raises a finger to his lips, shhhh.

Blaine spits, "Your other fighter's going to need someone to drive _him_ home."

The kid grins and slinks off, back into the shadows. Blaine just might be a keeper. This ought to provide entertainment value for a good long time - that is, if he survives the first round.

IV

Two full fights in, and Blaine's doing quite well.

The first kid actually tries, and circles Blaine, hopping about with tentative jabs to the midsection. But he's left himself open. Blaine's hard uppercut makes the kid's head snap up. He'd actually lifted off, suspended in air like a marionette, and hopped back onto the balls of his feet, then onto the concrete. Blaine makes a tigerish leap towards him, but the kid rolls over and runs off, clutching at his face. Blaine lets go of his bottom lip and licks it, relishing the blood, the sweat, the dirt. It's fucking _delicious_. The second kid lasts a little longer, maybe three minutes, and he does get a few good swings in. The adrenaline numbs him from the pain. The radiating burns and blossoming bruises only serve to make him feel so, so good.

Blaine lands a devastating right hook, then a jab to the nose. There's a crunch. The kid's nose breaks and blood runs in a slow trickle, like lava, down to his mouth. He childishly yells out in pain and sits down abruptly on the ground and looks up with frightened black eyes. Blaine's conscience twinges just a little, but there's also too little pity left to keep caring. He spits out bloody snot and it lands, neatly, next to the kid's gloves. The spectators pass around wads of crumpled-up cash. Blaine _loves_ this. The yield of cartilage against his gloves is so much sweeter than a fucking stupid bag, and so is the hot rush of adrenaline that suffuses his blood with joy. He grimaces through the tumbled mass of fallen sweaty curls on his forehead. He feels feral. He feels like a beast.

But he's put more into these first two fights than he thought. The next kid's quite a bit taller, and he's muscular too, longer, leaner, tanned. He's got enough skill to duck and enough training to realize that Blaine's getting tired. When Blaine jumps back now, he stumbles, and he can't hold up his elbow high enough so his face is now unprotected. The kid sees his chance. His punch lands Blaine right in the center of his gut, which he didn't tighten, and because he's already hurt and surprised, he falls. Now, it's his limbs that lie like lead, and the kid's grin is white in a tanned, lean face as he jeers, looking over Blaine's helplessness. Blaine is _furious. _Mostly at himself.

The bell rings. It's the other kid's turn to relish his victory, and Blaine's turn to taste failure, and it sears like white-hot liquid metal pooling in his gut and throat. Something unhinges.

V

After everyone's left, Blaine waits patiently in the shadow of a nearby brick building. He waits for his prey until the kid's just ahead of him, in the full yellow beam of a street light, before leaping. It's a stretch to reach his chin, but he makes it, and the blade just scrapes the surface of his skin, pushing the kid's chin upward so he can't see who's behind him.

"Whoa_,_" the kid says, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, "The fight's over."

"Not until I say it is," Blaine growls.

"I'm gonna turn around. Okay?"

Blaine presses the blade in closer. He doesn't really want to slide the point of the knife in - does he? He feels the fear running through the kid's veins. Blaine feels powerful and in control and just under it? He's going to explode any second amidst the crisis he's having: do I? Or don't I?

The anticipation of it is just as much pleasure as the cut is going to be. It just feels too good, in the end, and Blaine decides to delay the climax just a bit longer. "Okay. Turn around."

He lowers the stolen blade. The kid steps forward, turns around, and looks Blaine up and down. There's a tiny red trickle of blood wending its way down his throat. Instead of standing squarely in front of him to look down into his angry, glassy eyes, he puts his back to the dirty brick wall and crosses his arms.

"Man, you're short, but you're not a bad fighter. One day you'll be as good as me."

There's a hint of respect there, but it isn't enough. "You want trouble?" Blaine makes sure to flash the blade.

"You can't even handle that knife." He snorts.

Blaine drops it. The blade lands, handle down, and bounces off and away to rest against the edge of the alleyway. Because he can't think of anything else to do, he stuffs his hands in his empty pockets and goes to lean against the wall next to the kid.

"What's your name?" Blaine tilts his aching head to the sky and closes his eyes.

"I go by Goliath here. I'm Jewish."

"You can call me David."

Goliath shrugs and cracks his knuckles. "I don't care about your real name. You got _problems_."

"So?"

"That's why you're there, huh?"

"Yeah. I didn't come there to talk."

"I come for the cash, and it's fun."

"That's why I'm there, too. That, and my problems."

"You're different than the others. You enjoy it too much."

"So? Why do you care?"

"I don't care. But it's personal for you. That's dangerous shit, for me and for everyone else you'll fight."

Blaine smirks. "Too bad I'm too tired right now to kick your ass."

"Not like I couldn't handle you, but other fighters won't. I'm gonna have to take this one for the team."

Goliath tosses his jacket to the ground and whips around to stand in the boxing stance in the middle of the alleyway. He shifts his weight between his feet. No tape, no gloves. "Let's rumble, David."

Blaine shrugs. "I told you I'm too tired."

"Scared, chickenshit?"

"I'm _not_ scared."

"Prove it."

Goliath throws out the challenge with just enough scorn to get Blaine's blood to a boil.

And Blaine forgets everything he's been taught about stances and disciplined punches, because he doesn't see Goliath anymore. The flames ripple through his veins and he sees a red flag and he hurtles towards Goliath with a yell that doesn't seem human. Crescendo.

And with that, Goliath fades away. Crescendo. He lands almost on top of him and Goliath topples down, bringing Blaine with him. Instead of Goliath, he sees the shadows of hoodies and hears the echoes of _fag_ in the air all around him. Goliath tries to shield his head with his forearms, but he's tired, too. Blaine gets a hold of him and pins him down between his knees and keeps screaming. Thick red blood runs down around Goliath's face and purple-black bruises bloom around his eyes. Blaine's heart sings for victory, crescendo, and his heartbeat is loud, thump thump thump thump, in his ears, crescendo, crescendo.

He keeps hitting, and then he thinks of something worse, something better. He presses his thumbs into Goliath's trachea and starts to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. He imagines their faces, all blended together, in Goliath's wide, terrified brown eyes. It feels good. _This is going to feel so good_ - and the dam's going to burst, and _it already feels so good_ -

_Crescendo_.

"Fuck," Goliath says weakly, with a cough, but his voice is getting weaker and weaker as he slips further away from consciousness - "Fuck - stop it - stop it - you psycho. Stop."

Shit.

Clarity floods his senses. It gets cold.

_Thump thump thump thump._

Shit.

His heartbeat slows.

_Diminuendo._

_Shit._

The heat departs as swiftly as it came. For some reason, right there, Blaine sees his mother's face. And that's enough reason for him to stop.

VI

Blaine rolls off of Goliath and falls to the ground next to him. Goliath puts his own hands up to his neck and wheezes, gulping in huge drafts of air.

He puts his own aching hands up to cover his face in shame and for the first time since the incident, he cries. He cries in loud, huge, body-wracking sobs and wails, and Blaine doesn't care who hears, much less this kid that he almost - he almost -

Goliath quietens. And when he speaks, it's with a struggle.

"You okay, David?"

Blaine can barely hear, but his suddenly very active conscience kicks him in the gut, and it hurts worse than during the fight.

"Oh shit. Shit, I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, oh shit, oh shit - " and he tries to scramble over to see how Goliath is doing, but it hurts everywhere, it hurts now, it hurts. He flops back down, and that hurts, too. His mother, and his father, and he just tried to beat the shit out of a stranger who's done nothing to him really, and -

"Nah. Don't come over here. Don't get up. I'm fine, I'm fine, really. I'll - I'll - "

Goliath manages, somehow, to stand, towering over Blaine. It's a slow, agonizing process, because Blaine sees his own guilt reflected in Goliath's suddenly very saddened face. He extends a hand to Blaine, who's still lying on the ground, stricken with the understanding of what he's done.

"Get up. I'll get my buddy to come drive you home. No tricks, I promise."

Their eyes lock, but there's no anger in Goliath's, and there is no longer any anger in Blaine's, either. Somehow, Goliath knows what Blaine knows. They say nothing on the drive, because nothing needs to be said anymore, save for when they reach the front driveway of Blaine's house.

Goliath looks back and forth between the house and Blaine. It's two in the morning. The beautifully appointed two-story house, in a nice, nice area of town, is still and stately in the darkness. The flower garden is perfect and pretty. There is a porch light on, though.

"Nice place."

"Yeah."

"You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. Look. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I promise." Words spill out because they can't express the depth of how sorry he is.

"You need to talk to someone."

"Yeah, I do."

"I don't ever want to see you in Fight Club again."

"Because you'll beat the shit out of me? I deserve it."

"No, I won't, and it's not that. I don't hold grudges. Now, get out. And stay out."

They shove Blaine out of the car and drive off. They don't look back. As the sputtering old Ford slowly turns the corner, he doesn't look back, either. He makes it up to his bed. He sleeps.

He doesn't mention Goliath or Fight Club to his therapist, because now there's so much else to talk about, words of anger and fear and feeling, and it does hurt, everything that he feels, but it brings relief. The flood of catharsis washes away specific memories, and so he doesn't remember who helped bring it all back to him. He does start a Fight Club at Dalton, because Blaine remembers the endorphin release.

But Puck remembers Blaine, and he keeps his distance in the beginning of their friendship. All Blaine really retains is the knowledge that it _is_ possible to get back up, even though you sometimes need a little push. He never does remember what he almost became, and that's a relief, too.


End file.
